It was almost 9 years ago that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo first premiered.
June Shannon and her daughter Alana Thompson were already famous by that point through Toddlers and Tiaras.
Along the way, she stumbled and lost everything. June has her job back but is on thin ice.
Now, the former millionaire’s net worth is shockingly low. How exactly did all of this happen?
A decade on reality television can earn a fortune, from direct income and also from the opportunities that come with fame.
You don’t see reality stars advertising things for fun very often on Instagram.
That is a huge business, and a massive opportunity for anyone famous enough to partner with any company.
At one time, online estimates had Mama June’s estimated net worth at $1 million.
Now, that doesn’t mean a vault of $1 million like a scaled down Scrooge McDuck.
Net worth incorporates your assets, from investments to vehicles to her upper middle class home.
That is now her former home, of course.
At present, in 2021, online estimates figure that her net worth is somewhere around $50k.
That’s more than twice the net worth of your average Millennial … but June is Gen X and a famous reality star.
How does someone go from being a millionaire with a steady reality TV income to less than a twentieth of that?
Well, the short version is addiction spiraling out of control.
Because casual drug use could never do this. This was an unyielding binge that almost cost June her life.
June’s drug use goes back many years, of course.
She has recently detailed how she would use meth to be productive over the years.
However, she was not constantly using.
A few years ago, however, she and boyfriend Geno Doak began using crack cocaine.
While this was not their only drug of choice, this seemed to signal a change in their lifestyle.
June says that production was aware of their difficult to miss habit, but that no one cared until it was no longer secret.
In early 2019, June and Geno were both arrested.
A police search found that they were in possession of crack.
This blew the door wide open on June’s and Geno’s drug habit. By then, things were already out of control.
June began to sell off her family’s belongings without telling them.
She sold furniture, children’s toys, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down in her once-nice home.
Thankfully, Alana had already gone to live with her sister, Lauryn, and was spared seeing more of this happen in person.
Selling random items for quick cash turned into selling off furniture and inviting strangers into the house to buy things.
These strangers witnessed and reported seeing filth, garbage, and syringes scattered throughout the home.
Over time, the house took on obvious exterior damage including broken windows and, infamously, damage to the garage.
Eventually, June ran out of content in her house to sell.
She sold her house for well below market value and left town with Geno.
Additionally, June would pawn her jewelry for the cash that they needed to get high.
How did she spend this much?
Well, she and Geno were at one point dropping $2,500 a day on cocaine.
And by “she and Geno,” we of course mean June. She was the one who financed this downward spiral.
Fortunately, at the very beginning of 2020, while living in their vehicle, they made a choice.
June and Geno opted to go to rehab.
They reached out to production, who set things up for them. They almost got high one more time … but thankfully, did not.
Now, June has a home again and a car again, largely due to her continued ties with WEtv and production and to her fame.
The new home that she and Geno share is modest compared to her old one.
And while she is once again making money from Mama June: Road to Redemption, it will take years of continued sobriety and employment to rebuild what she had.
The greater cost, of course, is June’s relationship with her family.
The trust is gone. She hurt her family with disappointment, theft, and betrayal.
June could get paid $1 million tomorrow and she’d still have more work to do — to put her family back together.
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